'Traffic'

Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000) follows the drug trade across three intertwined stories: a newly appointed U.S. drug czar (Michael Douglas), a Tijuana cop (Benicio del Toro), and the wife of an arrested trafficker (Catherine Zeta-Jones). On this episode of They Shoot Films, we dig into how the film works as both a drug war drama and a formal cinematic experiment.

Adapted by Stephen Gaghan from the British miniseries Traffik, the film was shot by Soderbergh himself under the pseudonym Peter Andrews. We discuss Soderbergh's career, talk about the script's origins, and why Traffic, winner of four Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Supporting Actor for del Toro, still holds up as one of the defining films of the century--and arguably, Steven Soderbergh's greatest achievement.